Intel Core i5-12400 Desktop Processor 18M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz

Product Information

I was impressed by the cooling potential of the 700D Airflow, which can accommodate up to three 360 mm radiators. This means that even under heavy loads, my system stays cool and running smoothly. The savings are truly massive and it places Alder Lake roughly on par with Zen 3 for this comparison. Processors that support 64-bit computing on Intel® architecture require an Intel 64 architecture-enabled BIOS.

The Core i5-12400F is my new go-to budget CPU and we hope to see some nice budget B660 boards available soon! Shopping Shortcuts: A computer case with good airflow is necessary to remove heat from the CPU and other components, such as the graphics card and power supply unit. This airflow can be achieved through various means, including the number and placement of case fans, the size and location of vents or mesh panels, and liquid coolers. The ultra-quiet design of the Toughpower GF3 makes it an excellent choice for anyone looking for a power supply that won't add excess noise to their system, even under heavy workloads.Max Turbo Frequency refers to the maximum single-core processor frequency that can be achieved with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology. See www.intel.com/technology/turboboost/ for more information and applicability of this technology. Obviously we need to take this with a good deal of caution, though, but it’s quite a startling result if genuine. If we remove the power limits with the RM1 box cooler, the 12400 maintains an all-core frequency of 4 GHz – a 5-8% frequency boost there – and its temperature peaked at 82C, but the RM1 was noticeably loud now, which is not an ideal solution, though it does work.

For testing the Core i5-12400, we're using the MSI B660M Mortar Wi-Fi DDR4 with 32GB of dual-rank, dual-channel DDR4-3200 CL14 memory – the same stuff we use for all our DDR4 testing – and it's typically faster than single-rank DDR4-3800 CL18 memory in terms of performance. The i5-12400 performs much better in Far Cry 6, at least when compared to the 5600X as it was up to 10% faster, beating even the 5800X and 11700K.

The Corona benchmark sees the 12400 delivering exceptional levels of performance, beating the 11600K and 5600X. Taking 117 seconds to complete the workload meant it was 9% faster than the 5600X, despite being 26% slower than the 12600K.

Intel has made plenty of progress, but AMD still holds the crown of the most power-efficient chips even though the margin has gotten slimmer, largely due to the single-die Ryzen 5000G models. The Ryzen 5000 chips generally consume less peak power, and some models can also accomplish more work per unit of power consumed. That results in superior power consumption, efficiency, and thermal output, so you'll end up with a cooler and quieter system. Pricing: Intel Core i5-12400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 5 5600G Putting the Core i5-12400 up against AMD's price-comparable models isn't a fair fight; the Core i5-12400 beats them by huge margins. That's because the Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600 are several years old and have the previous-gen Zen 2 architecture. But, again, these are the only price-comparable chips from the AMD camp. In gaming, the Core i5-12400 is 22.7% and 26% faster than the Ryzen 5 3600X and 3600, respectively. The 12400 goes toe-to-toe with the 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X that has long been the favorite for enthusiasts because of its incredible blend of pricing and performance. This chip comes with a 65W TDP rating, 32MB of L3 cache, and has only high-performance cores. It also supports DDR4-3200 memory and the PCIe 4.0 interface.The single core performance was also very mighty, and this of course explains how the 12400 beat the 5600X. Here we're looking at a 12% improvement in performance. You could point to a 20% drop in performance in Far Cry 6, but we are talking about a drop from 147fps to 118fps. That's the biggest cut, where our other gaming tests don't have that great a delta. And it bears saying that as you bump up the resolution, those differences get smaller as the game performance becomes more GPU bound. It was also just 4% slower than the 12600K and a massive 26% faster than the previous generation 11600K. It's also worth noting that running at the 65-watt spec had little influence on performance. The TDP of the Core i5-12400 is an excellent way to determine the power supply's wattage requirement. The TDP indicates the CPU's power to draw under a heavy load at its max base speed. Too low of a wattage rating in a power supply can result in power throttling, which can cause the CPU to slow down, impacting performance. It's also important to note that the TDP only represents the CPU's power consumption, and other components, such as the graphics card, RAM, and storage devices, also require power. We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. The first slide above shows the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in the single-threaded category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below.

When compared to past generations, it did roughly match the 11700K and was quite a bit faster than the 11600K, in that sense performance was very good. Its gaming performance and productivity prowess make it a no-brainer for a mainstream gaming PC build, especially when you factor in the potent platform that the B660 chipset still offers. Do we need DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 in a budget rig? Not a jot.As expected, we don't see a significant difference between the 12400's different power/memory settings, which has more impact on threaded work and gaming, but the 12400 doesn't need much help. The chip is 2.3% faster than the Core i9-11900K, 6% faster than the 11700K, and an incredible 15.7% faster than the 11400. In most instances, particularly gaming, the 12400 shouldn't be a great deal slower than the 12600K, and if that is the case it's going to be an extremely sought-after item by budget gamers. The Horizon Zero Dawn results aren't that favorable for the 12400. That said it's worth mentioning that if we were to use the ultimate quality setting the game is entirely GPU limited and this normalizes CPU performance, seeing the 5600X and 12400 matched, even with the 6900 XT at 1080p. But with the dialed down 'favor quality' visual preset the game becomes more CPU limited in our test conditions and this saw the 5600X up to 21% faster with the 12600K up to 17% faster. That generally means the expensive options, such as the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 range of boards, but there have been reports of it working on B660 motherboards, too, and potentially even the less expensive DDR4 options, though we've yet to try those out ourselves.